The Chair of the North Carolina Republican Party Robin Hayes has been indicted on charges including bribery, wire fraud and aiding and abetting. Durham businessman and the state’s largest political donor Greg Lindberg, along with two of his associates, John Gray and John Palermo Jr., were also indicted.
The indictment issued by the U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina outlined how the defendants are accused of attempting to bribe the state’s insurance commissioner, Mike Causey. Lindberg and his associates allegedly wanted Causey to fire or reassign the head of the department that regulated some of Lindberg's businesses.
U.S. Attorney Andrew Murray, a Trump appointee, called it a “brazen” scheme adding the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice will “use all the tools at [its] disposal” to investigate corruption.
Hayes also faces three counts of making false statements to the FBI who interviewed him in the summer of 2018, wrote Murray.